Difficulties encountered and solutions provided in the implementation of a multidisciplinary intervention for the prevention of dependency in the older population in rural areas: the MINDED study

Abstract

Prevent increased number of dependent elderly has become a new priority for European public health. To achieve this, it is necessary to identify the frail older persons at risk of becoming dependent. Detecting frailty also allows to better understand an old patient's physiological reserves before making a therapeutic decision. To date, research tries to realize simple frailty screening tools allowing the clinician to better target - care provided to old adults during their first consultation. Furthermore, frailty is a reversible syndrome, so a global geriatric evaluation will allow the implementation of an individual program of early multi-domain care. The Multidomain intervention to prevent disability project in elders (MINDED), a randomized trial to prevent disability in elders, aims, in its second phase, to test the feasibility and to verify logistical, methodological and organizational aspects of the multi-domain intervention of the pilot study. In this paper, we shall describe the difficulties encountered and the solutions found during this feasibility phase.